Love like Fire
by hugglesbunny
Summary: Victoria loved someone, certainly, but Riley was never sure it was him. Riley POV. Written for the Love for the Unloved contest.


**"Love for the Unloved" Contest Entry**

**Title: **Love like Fire

**Your pen name(s): **HugglesBunny

**Featured "B-list" Character(s):** Riley and Victoria

**If you would like to see all the stories that are a part of this contest visit the "Love for the Unloved" C2 Community:**

**http://www****(DOT)fanfiction(DOT)net/community/Love_for_the_Unloved_Contest/72809/**

* * *

Disclaimer – I do not own Twilight, and I make no profit from this story. The dialogue at the end is taken from Eclipse, chapter 24, as are the stage cues (i.e. actions) though they are interpreted from Riley's POV

* * *

Victoria told me, as I lay burning in what I thought must be hell, that she loved me.

Her voice coaxed me through the fire, through the pain, through the unshakeable belief that I was dying, and I clung to her voice like it was my last chance for salvation. When the fire finally subsided, retreated into a small flame burning deep in my throat and stomach, she was there, a goddess cloaked in red.

She reached out one gleaming hand to me and I took it, allowing her to pull me up from the ground and lead me through the deep forest toward town. Even in my crazed bloodlust, I felt a pull toward her, felt that she could complete me.

I would follow her anywhere.

She led me to a farmhouse on the outskirts of town and grabbed me roughly, pulling me back when I would have charged in after the scent of beating hearts. The moment she had touched me I had realized that I was stronger than her, but even in my angry, blood-crazed haze I couldn't hurt her.

She was an angel, sent from hell to keep me company. I could live with the hunger if she was there.

"Patience," she whispered roughly before disappearing into the building, leaving me fighting with my desire to please her and my desire for human blood. As her presence faded from my mind the bloodlust began to win and just as I had made up my mind to go in search of the pulsing blood that I could feel, that called to me, she emerged with a sleeping girl cradled in her arms. I could hear the steady beat from her chest, see the rise and fall of her chest and practically feel the soft wisps of air coming from her body.

I took a step forward, shocked at my own speed and once again she stopped me.

"The time will come, my love."

She walked into the night, lighting it up as though she were a torch burning brightly. As the scent of pulsing blood went with her, I followed, unable to deny her anything.

She moved swiftly, smoothly, barely seeming to disturb the leaves that she stepped on as we moved through the forest quickly. I charged after her, not nearly as graceful in my newfound abilities and certainly unable to keep the child asleep as she did.

We arrived back at her lair, a small clearing in the middle of the forest with a half demolished house nestled in the back. What remained of the house was low stone walls and a caved in timber roof. She had cleared out one the rooms and from the back of the house my newly enhanced nose could smell death, stale from time, and I realized that this was not the first human she had spirited away from town.

"Come…" I followed obediently, pulled just as much by her soft voice as I was by the softly beating heart.

She set the child on the ground on a pile of old tattered blankets and turned to face me.

Every sense was heightened by the presence of the human in the room, even though she was still sleeping peacefully.

"They are weak, Riley, the humans…" Her voice was husky, flowing through my brain like a drug and I shivered as she reached out and brushed my face gently. "You have joined an ancient race, one that isn't mortal and powerless, but instead made to rule."

Her fingers trailed down my cheek, along my neck and across my collarbone and I resisted the urge to sigh. Her eyes held mine, the bright red seeming to mirror the feeling in my head, and I was hypnotized by her voice, her touch, her very being.

"Feel the hunger, Riley, embrace it." Her lips caressed my name and I almost forgot about the small human girl. "Learn to control it, harness it, wield it. Use it like the power that it is. That it was meant to be."

She made the smallest motion to pull me toward her and I followed without hesitation, anything to be closer to her. One pale hand rested on my chest, where my heart used to beat and a smile spreads across her beautiful face.

"I thought you would never wake."

And her hand fisted in my torn shirt and pulled me to her, her lips meeting mine with an urgency that rivaled mine. As she bit my lower lip she growled, "It felt like an eternity."

As her fingers held me, I finally noticed the burning strength that poured through every vein of my body, racing excitedly where blood had once flowed. With one quick movement, I grabbed both of her hands in mine and lifted her up, holding against the stone wall. She whimpered, seeming oddly accepting of my domination and I smiled ferally. At the sound of stone crumbling, the human child, asleep for all this time, began to cry and struggle to move itself. Her legs wrapped themselves around my hips, keeping me in place when my instincts were screaming for me to go after my prey.

Her voice was raspy as she whispered, "Not yet, my love," and slid her hands lower, all thoughts of the child leaving my mind as quickly as her hand grasped my throbbing manhood.

I had been… 20, my mind supplied. Yes, I had been 20 and I had never felt anything like this with another human. It was as if being a vampire made every bestial emotion come forward, pushing those "civilized thoughts" into the recesses of my brain, along with my human memories.

The feel of her hand stroking me, of her breasts in my hands, of her legs wrapped tightly around my hips seemed to drive every human piece of me away, leaving me consumed by the animal inside me, the animal that wanted to devour her piece by piece.

With one rough motion I pushed up her long skirts, the scent of her arousal tingeing the air around me. She shivered, making no move to stop me and I groaned as her hands slid out of my pants and began unfastening them quickly. Moments later I was poised in between her legs, and with a wicked grin she bit my neck and sank down onto me, letting a delicious moan slide through her pale lips. Underneath me, I could feel the venom inside her coursing quicker, much as blood would if she still had a beating heart.

"Now, Riley…" she continued to moan my name as I thrust into her, lust for blood and for her mixing in my brain like a drug. As I was about to come she reached over and grabbed the screaming child, forgotten until now, and placed her in front of me.

"Welcome to immortality, Riley," and she bit down on pale arm. The second blood appeared at her mouth, I lost what little control I still had. As the blood poured down my throat and my cock thrust inside of her I was consumed by the fire, pushing back the awareness that I had sold my soul for Hell on earth.

Immediately after, the hunger faded. She would tell me later that it was unusual for a newborn to be so sedate so soon after the change, but when I was around her I felt whole. I don't think I could have explained it if I wanted to.

Later that night, we lay in the hollowed out house and she told me about why she had created me.

"They're trying to kill me Riley, a pathetic human and her vampire mate."

I growled low under my breath, unable to stand the thought of her no longer walking this earth.

"We must form an army and go after them, while they are still planning to come after me. Only then can we live together safely."

I agreed without hesitation, more than willing to hunt and kill this vampire and his weak little human mate for what they planned to do to her. We made plans, began searching the area for people to change, people who were already half vampire in their hearts. We followed them to and from their homes, watched their interactions with the other humans, and it became a great exercise in controlling my thirst for blood. It was crucial, she told me one night after a particularly vicious round of sex, that we change them right before the battle; only then would they have the strength and unbridled rage that would tip the odds in our favor.

I knew what she meant. As time went on my newborn rage seemed to mellow, dull and taper itself into an uncanny ability to find and hunt humans. Yes, I now had greater foresight and the ability to think logically but I lacked that rippling effortless brutality that I had possessed upon my awakening.

It had been less than a week since my change and I was realizing that my immortality was not all I had believed it would be.

As much as I loved her, as much as I wanted desperately to be with her in mind, body and whatever spirit a vampire could have, she remained distant. I would often find her staring off into space, though what she was thinking of she would never tell me. It bothered me, that look in her eyes. Vague human memories resurfaced of my sister looking like that while thinking about her boyfriend, off far away serving in the military. The longing and pain that she felt at his separation had been apparent in her face, and I tried to deny that Victoria looked much the same now.

It couldn't be. She told me that she loved me. How could she love me and be pining for another who wasn't here? At these times I would leave our hide out and go in search of prey, anything that would take my mind off of the gaping distance between me and my love. At those times my kills became predominately male. I would stalk them and terrorize them and then bite them, all the while imagining it was them who Victoria longed for. After I had drank my fill of blood I didn't even want, I would return to her, enlivened by the blood coursing through my body and I would take her, wherever she happened to be. It was only during these times, when she was pinned underneath me screaming my name, that I truly seemed to own her mind and body.

The clues came sporadically, and I had to know what to look for; a soft flash of tenderness through her eyes when a tall, blonde man walked by, a small downward tug at the corner of her mouth when a woman called for her child.

"James!" and that one word sent her face crashing for the briefest of moments.

I ignored it.

Whoever James was, and wherever he was, he wasn't here. I was here with her, making her scream until she begged for release. Those nights were the best. She seemed to welcome the distraction, and I convinced myself that she wanted to forget James. Why else would she have created me? She needed me, or that was what I told myself. I was the one here, helping to protect her from the human-lovers, the yellow eyed vampires.

I don't know what changed that next day, but she suddenly decided that she needed to start forming her army, needed to start biting the humans.

I watched, a sharp flash of jealousy eating at me with every human she bit. She had always told me that she was able to keep me alive because she loved me from the moment she saw me. With every human that survived, that reason carried less and less weight. I knew she was right when she said that I didn't have the self control to bite them and not finish them off. I knew she was right when she said that we would need an army to defeat the freak family that defied what we were and sought to destroy her.

That didn't make it hurt any less.

I watched with sullen eyes as she left a wake of screaming, writhing half-humans behind her, trying to forget my screaming pain that had been so recent, yet felt so far away.

We watched them for three days, and at the end of those three days we made sure they didn't kill each other from newborn rage. Victoria walked among them, using quiet words and soft touches, much as she had with me, to calm them down and try to tell them why they had been created. I used the days to hunt, walking brazenly into town and selecting the men that she had spared, three men who were each, in their own way, tall handsome and blonde. I fed on them, one each day that the newborns writhed, and then I went in search of less offensive kills to bring back to her.

I pushed down the jealousy, choosing to believe the words she whispered at night. I believed that everything would be better once she was out from under the cloud of revenge that hung over her like a storm. Once the vampire and the human were dead, the newborns would go their own way and we would be free to be together.

Just the fact that she was keeping me with her during the fight, instead of leaving me with the other newborns to fight the werewolves, showed that she loved me.

I ignored the flash of guilt as we walked away, knowing full well that she didn't intend to go back and help them. So what if we left? The truly strong would survive, it was how nature worked. They had been created for a purpose, and now they were fulfilling it, and whoever didn't make it, well, that was one less person to take up her time.

I was surprised when we walked into the clearing and I finally saw our quarry. A pale brown haired girl stood off to the side, avoiding my eyes as I looked her over before glancing at Victoria. She nodded, almost imperceptibly and I started forward but stopped dead in my tracks when the vampire, her mate, spoke my name.

"Riley."

I stared at him for a moment, and he spoke again.

"She's lying to you, Riley," Edward told him. "Listen to me. She's lying to you just like she lied to the others who are dying now in the clearing. You know that she's lied to them, that she had you lie to them, that neither of you were ever going to help them. Is it so hard to believe that she's lied to you, too?"

Every traitorous thought that had been in my head over the last few weeks rushed back in, swirling through my mind like a cloud of doubt, and I tried to shrug it off. The other vampire moved several inches to the side and I automatically followed him. No time to think. I had to help Victoria. I didn't know who this strange yellow eyes vampire was, but he didn't know anything about our relationship. He didn't know what we'd been through, together.

"She doesn't love you, Riley."His voice was soft, as though he was sorry that was the truth. "She never has. She loved someone named James, and you're no more than a tool to her."

He was answering every bitter thought I'd ever had, and I glanced over at Victoria, willing her to argue with him, to stand up for our love. She did nothing more than bare her teeth at him in a mocking snarl and I refocused on him as he called, "Riley?"

"She knows that I will kill you, Riley. She wants you to die so that she doesn't have to keep up the pretense anymore. Yes — you've seen that, haven't you? You've read the reluctance in her eyes, suspected a false note in her promises. You were right. She's never wanted you. Every kiss, every touch was a lie."

No. I was here to help her, so she could be safe, and we could live together forever. My memories came rushing back though, every time her eyes had been distant, every time she had stared too long at a human. And that damn name…

James.

It took me a few seconds to realize that the other vampire had moved again, and I slowly moved after him, no longer entirely sure of my decision.

"You don't have to die," His eyes lock with mine and I'm unable to look away. "There are other ways to live than the way she's shown you. It's not all lies and blood, Riley. You can walk away right now. You don't have to die for her lies."

Lies…

Were they lies? I'm so caught up in his words that I fail to notice that he's moved once more. I hurry to compensate, my mind still running over his words.

Lies…

Victoria shifts, drawing my attention and I stare at her pleadingly.

"Last chance, Riley," he whispered.

Before I can make up my mind she finally speaks. "He's the liar, Riley. I told you about their mind tricks. You know I love only you."

Love. That's right.

She only loves me.

Me.

I tense to attack but before I can move a large tan thing flies at me, knocking me onto the ground and tearing at me. The pain is an unbelievable thing. It burns and at the same time is completely irrelevant. I don't need that hand to survive. It's not like I can bleed to death. I stagger to my feet, my eyes on the wolf that attacked me. He circles in a low slinking motion, his eyes never leaving mine. I kick out at him swiftly and he's unable to dodge it. In the corner of my mind I'm aware of her sliding through the forest, still trying to get at the human girl.

The yellow eyes vampire is still between her and the girl, and he seems unwilling to move. In this brief moment, the wolf darts near me again, taking out another chunk of my cold flesh. I roar loudly and swipe at him but he skips off, way faster than a beast that big has a right to be.

Victoria is speaking now, trading words with the other vampire but it's impossible for me to listen to their conversation and still fight off the were-thing. Fortunately, the wolf hasn't realized this. He pauses for a fraction of a second to check on the human female and I dart toward him, hitting him soundly in the flank. He makes a loud yelping noise and I can't help but smile as he's visibly shaken.

I use my advantage to press toward him, determined to finish him off so I can go to her aid. Once this whole mess is done we can travel peacefully for a few centuries, taste the blood of the world. At this thought I glance back over at Victoria, making sure she's still holding her own.

There's a shocking flash of pain as the wolf attacks again, and I let loose a feral roar and smash my entire arm into him. He goes flying into the stone wall above the cowering human and drops to the ground, a limp mass of fur. I stagger toward him, determined to finish him off one way or another. My brain is consumed by thoughts of the wolf's neck in my teeth and I'm completely unprepared for what happens next.

There's a sudden rush of want that overtakes me, and it takes a moment for my brain to recognize the alluring scent.

Blood, fresh blood.

I freeze for a long moment and then there's another blinding flash of pain and I'm suddenly missing an arm. I shriek, putting all my rage into it, and it seems like the entire clearing shook with the sound. The wolf has stood up and is coming toward me, clearly sensing his sudden advantage. I back away, no longer sure of the fight, of my ability to win. The scent of pulsing blood is hard to ignore, so much harder than just the sound of her heart and the wolf looks more intimidating now.

I barely notice as my other arm gets ripped off, though my throat seems to understand what's happening and lets out another piercing scream.

I look toward my love and shout her name but she doesn't even look at me. Her eyes stay riveted on the male vampire, hatred in her eyes and I feel my last shred of humanity disappear. I barely notice as the sandy wolf slams into me, carrying me into the trees, and into blissful, lonely darkness.


End file.
